In Lee County alone, more than 2,500 people have HIV, and the cost of living with the disease is crippling -- close to $3,000 per month.

Now that HIV isn't considered an immediate death sentence, a local non-profit is finding it harder to recruit donors to help them fight the disease.

She's not ashamed, but Amy doesn't want to show her face because making a living depends on people not being scared of her.

"It's very frustrating," Amy says. "It's like I'm made of Anthrax or something!"

So the 23-year-old is here to set the record straight.

"When I was 19 years old I contracted HIV from somebody who I had been with for about three years," Amy says.

She caught her boyfriend cheating. That's when Amy got tested.

"It could happen to anyone if it happened to me, if you think about it," she says. "If you had unprotected sex with one person, it could have happened to you and you just don't know it yet."

That's the message at ICAN. The Island Coast AIDS Network supports patients like Amy, and its food pantry feeds more than 500 families a week, but the economy is taking a toll on the non-profit.

"Some people aren't able to help as much as they were in the prior years," Jessica Collins, ICAN Director of Development, says.

It makes fundraisers like this Friday's Handbag Happy Hour all the more important. Many designers, including a one-of-a-kind by Chico's, are offering up their bags for auction.

"Elizabeth Taylor is a big crusader in the fight for HIV, and she graced us with one of her personal bags from her wardrobe this year," Collins says.

All of the money stays right here in Southwest Florida, which helps to fuel the message Amy brings to schools: don't wait to get tested.

"Had I have waited three more months to be tested, I would have had full-blown AIDS," Amy says.

She now has a prominent tattoo -- a red ribbon on her wrist with the words "Until There's a Cure," which serves as a reminder to herself about how far her fight has come.

"It's kind of my motivation to do one more thing, try one more thing just because I never know how long I'm going to live."

The Seventh Annual Handbag Happy Hour is this Friday at 6 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point. Admission is $85 and includes open bar and hors d'oeuvres.

Last year the charity raised more than $60,000 from the designer bag event.

To register, visit www.icanswfl.org or this link:

To sponsor, donate, volunteer or receive an invitation email Jessica Collins at jcollins@icanswfl.org.